Top 10 UX Research Tools for Designers

In UX research, having the right tools is essential for truly understanding your users and making informed design choices. For experienced designers and researchers, the right tools can turn guesswork into user-centered design. These tools do more than just collect data; they streamline your workflow, facilitate team collaboration, and uncover valuable insights that drive effective design. Essentially, they save you time and help you create better products.

In this guide, we will cover the top ten UX research tools with simple tips to improve testing and feedback for better user-focused designs.

Top 10 UX Research Tools for Designers

1. Lookback

Lookback is a powerful tool for remote user research, allowing you to conduct live interviews, run unmoderated tests, and gather real-time feedback. It’s an ideal solution for UX researchers who need to observe how users interact with designs or prototypes and capture detailed insights for later analysis.

How Experts Use Lookback for UX Research?

Lookback simplifies remote user testing by offering both live, moderated sessions and unmoderated tests. During live sessions, you can observe users as they navigate through your design, asking questions and gathering real-time feedback. For uncontrolled tests, users complete tasks at their own pace, while the sessions are recorded for later review.

One of Lookback’s standout features is its ability to capture everything from user screen interactions to facial expressions via webcam. This allows researchers to not only understand what users are doing but also how they’re feeling while doing it. Additionally, Lookback makes collaboration easier by enabling you to share recordings with your team or stakeholders, ensuring faster feedback and informed design decisions.

2. Maze

Maze is a remote testing platform that makes uncontrolled user testing simple and efficient, allowing researchers to quickly gather actionable data. It integrates seamlessly with design tools like Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD, making it easy to test your prototypes.

Best Practices for Using Maze in UX Research?

Maze allows researchers to run uncontrolled tests on prototypes, collecting valuable feedback from a global audience without needing to be present. This is particularly useful when gathering feedback from users across different time zones. Maze’s detailed analytics provide insights such as heatmaps, click-through rates, and task completion times, helping you identify usability issues and areas for improvement.

You can also customize tests for specific user personas, ensuring the feedback you collect is both relevant and meaningful. This makes Maze especially useful when testing features designed for niche audiences or specific user groups.

3. Qualaroo

Qualaroo is an excellent tool for gathering user feedback through surveys. It helps UX researchers ask the right questions and gather insights directly from users at key moments in their journey.

How UX Researchers Use Qualaroo?

Qualaroo’s pre-built survey templates simplify the process of creating user questionnaires. You can also use Qualaroo for prototype testing by uploading design templates and collecting feedback from users. Its AI-powered analytics allow you to turn user responses into actionable insights, which can be used to improve the design or identify potential issues early in the process.

With support for multi-channel surveys, Qualaroo enables you to gather feedback across websites, apps, and more, making it a versatile tool for UX research. It ensures you’re collecting the right data at the right time, helping you improve the user experience.

4. Sprig

Sprig is a feedback tool designed to help UX researchers run surveys and superb user tests to gain insights into product experiences. It’s a flexible tool that integrates seamlessly into your design process, helping you optimize products based on user feedback.

How UX Researchers Use Sprig?

Sprig is ideal for collecting user feedback through surveys and usability tests. For global products where it's difficult to recruit participants from various regions, Sprig allows you to record unmoderated usability tests and gather insights from a wide array of users.

Sprig’s AI analysis and templates streamline the feedback process, helping researchers quickly make sense of user input and make data-driven decisions. It’s particularly useful for conducting user research in remote and large-scale testing environments.

5. Loop11

Loop11 is a user-friendly tool designed for conducting usability tests online, allowing UX researchers to evaluate user interactions with websites or digital products.

How UX Researchers Use Loop11?

Loop11 allows you to conduct online usability tests with real users, helping you evaluate how different elements of your product perform. It supports A/B testing, so you can determine which version of a design resonates more with your users. Additionally, Loop11 offers benchmarking to measure your product’s usability against industry standards or previous versions.

Its AI-powered insights help UX teams identify usability pain points and provide detailed data to inform design improvements. Whether you’re working on websites, apps, or digital products, Loop11 makes it easy to gather the feedback needed to improve the user experience.

6. Userlytics

Userlytics is a remote usability testing platform that offers a variety of testing options, including mobile app testing, VR testing, and accessibility testing. It also features a large panel of vetted participants, making recruitment easier for UX researchers.

How UX Researchers Use Userlytics?

Userlytics is a go-to platform for remote usability testing. With a panel of over 2 million vetted participants, it eliminates the time-consuming process of recruiting testers. Researchers can conduct a wide range of tests, including surveys, mobile app usability tests, and VR testing.

Userlytics combines both qualitative and quantitative data, offering comprehensive insights to help UX teams refine their designs. Its AI-powered analytics also help you quickly process large datasets, enabling you to act on user feedback faster.

7. Dscout

Dscount is a qualitative research platform built for remote testing and unmoderated research. It offers various tools, including Diary, Live, Recruit, and Express, each designed to help UX researchers collect detailed user feedback and insights.

How UX Researchers Use Dscout?

Dscout allows UX researchers to conduct in-depth diary studies, user interviews, and unmoderated research. The platform’s diary studies are particularly useful for capturing real-time feedback over an extended period, helping researchers understand how users interact with products in their daily lives.

Dscout also simplifies the recruitment process, offering a large pool of participants to choose from. Researchers can run tests, gather feedback, and analyze the results all within the platform, making it a comprehensive solution for qualitative UX research.

8. Reframer

Reframer helps UX researchers organize and analyze qualitative data by tagging and categorizing user interview responses, making it easier to extract meaningful insights from complex data sets.

How UX Researchers Use Reframer?

Reframer allows researchers to conduct interviews, tag key moments, and visualize data in one place. It is particularly helpful for organizing and making sense of messy qualitative data, which can be a problem to process manually. Reframer’s tools make it easy to identify trends, themes, and key insights from in-depth user feedback.

It also supports various research methods such as card sorting and first-click testing, allowing UX teams to fine-tune navigation and ensure that users can easily find what they need on a website or app.

9. UserZoom

UserZoom is a widely used tool for conducting various types of UX research tests, from usability testing to live interviews and tree testing. It provides detailed insights that help researchers improve their designs.

How UX Researchers Use UserZoom?

UserZoom helps researchers conduct usability tests, live interviews, and tree testing to understand how users navigate through a website or app. It also allows you to engage users with surveys and card sorting, helping you collect both qualitative and quantitative feedback.

With its streamlined data collection and analysis process, UserZoom turns user feedback into actionable insights, enabling UX teams to make informed design decisions that improve the overall user experience.

10. ProProfs Survey Maker

ProProfs Survey Maker is another excellent UX research tool for conducting user surveys. It comes with customizable templates, prefabricated questions, and multimedia support, making it ideal for gathering detailed user feedback.

How UX Researchers Use ProProfs Survey Maker

ProProfs Survey Maker offers a wide range of templates and built-in questions, saving you time when creating surveys. You can also customize templates to fit the specific needs of your project. For example, if you’re gathering feedback on a new product, ProProfs allows you to add videos of the product and ask users for detailed feedback on its functionality.

Its multimedia support and ability to collect quantitative data make it a powerful tool for UX research. Additionally, ProProfs provides learning resources that make it easy to use, even for beginners.

Conclusion

Having the right UX research tools is key to gathering insights and improving user experiences. Tools like Lookback for remote interviews, Maze for unmoderated testing, and Qualaroo for surveys make your workflow smoother and help you get better research results. Other tools, like Userlytics and Loop11, simplify usability testing and accessibility checks.

By using these tools well, you can understand user behavior more deeply, work effortlessly with your team, and make design decisions based on real data. Whether you're testing, collecting feedback, or analyzing results, these tools will help you create products that are intuitive and focused on user needs.